Monday, November 16, 2009

I hadn't spun much of late, because it wasn't something I could while breastfeeding, like knitting. But I'm back at it. Now I'm mostly feeling uninspired by my fiber stash, and keep carding together the wackiest combos of colors and fibers I can imagine hoping for inspiration. Here's some that turned out nicely--there's romney, icelandic, merino (among others) in pink, white, ice blue, french blue, natural dark brown, and red (among others). I plied with brown nylon thread.

Adrian sat on the floor staring at the wheel as it went round and round and round and round...

Saturday, November 14, 2009

For those of you who purchased my Hatteras Lace Shrug pattern [ravelry], I have a free, fun modification you might be interested in. This mod can be added after you have knit the regular pattern.

I'm a fan of simple, lacy shrugs created basically by seaming a bit at each end. But sometimes you want a little more.

Here's a modification you can use on any shrug of this type, including the Hatteras shrug.

Frilly Bodice for Hatteras Lace Shrug(modification)

Special Stitches:
m1p = make 1 purl stitch using a lifted increase.
m1k = make 1 knit st using a lifted inc.

Using size 7 needles, with RS of work facing you, and beginning at one of the side seams, pick up one stitch in each selvedge stitch.

Rounds 1-6: Work in k1, p1 rib.

Now you will work increases at each side seam, adding stitches at each side seam every other round in a fan pattern.

Round 7: *k1, m1p, k1, m1p, k1*; work in k1, p1 rib until second side seam, rep **; work in k1, p1 rib to end of round.
Round 8: (and all even numbered rounds): K the k sts; p the p sts.
Round 9: *k1, p1, m1p, k1, m1p, p1, k1*; work in k1, p1 rib until the second side seam, rep **; work in k1, p1 rib to end of round.

Friday, November 13, 2009

We are experiencing a hand-craft revolution. (See, e.g. Etsy, Ravelry, the rise of "Stitch and Bitch," etc.) There are similar handmade/handgrown/local revolutions occurring in food consumption (community-supported agriculture, the slow and organic food movements) and other areas of our lives.

Cultural studies folks tell us that we are in a post-industrial age. I believe that, in a good way, handcrafters and localvores are responding to this post-industrialization. Let me tell you what I mean.

One of the consequences of industrialization was that items that folks used to make by hand--e.g. wool into thread, into fabric, into clothes--became commodities produced by factories located at a distance from the end consumer. This "distance" is called "alienation;" literally, we are alienated from the food we eat, from the clothes we wear, from nearly all items that we purchase and otherwise consume.

In a post-industrial economy like ours, where the labor that drives industry has been outsourced overseas, we have nearly no knowledge of the location where our daily consumer objects are produced or of the people who produced them. The alienation from production is absolute.

And for some of us, this doesn't feel good.

Enter handcrafts, urban gardens, local farm CSAs. On these fronts, we are fighting post-industrialization and its attendant abuses, and curing, at least a little bit, our alienation.

Hard-core Marxist scholars might disagree with me, saying that the alienation can't be cured, that we're stuck with it. I'm a little more hopeful than that.